


No Rest For the Weary

by arcaneheart



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Choking, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-13 17:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaneheart/pseuds/arcaneheart
Summary: It doesn’t matter that Shorter is gentle with him. Sometimes gentle is worse. It reminds him of the times when they were gentle, the soft stroke of a stranger’s fingers against his cheek like what they were doing was love, a nauseating pantomime of tenderness.There's a reason Ash ends up here on the bad nights, when he needs to forget. Because Shorter is the only one he can trust to do anything for him.





	No Rest For the Weary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).

The subway rattles along the track in a rumbling static lullaby. 

It’s late and Ash just barely caught the last train of the night. The car is nearly empty, the only other occupants a few seemingly drunk college students and a man fast asleep in the far corner seat. Ash runs through his instinctual mental checklist to assess them: sensing nothing suspicious, he looks them over warily before glancing away. 

The ghost of a hand lingers at his arm, touches summoned by mere memory. Ash stares out at the ground rushing past beneath him as if moving fast enough might offer some escape. 

Most days, Ash is prepared for the possibility that he’ll have to look them in the eyes, that he’ll have to remember. He deals with Dino often enough - Marvin, too. He expects it, the leering and lingering gazes they impart, too familiar. 

Some days it’s harder to shake. When he passes them on the street, men living respectable, upstanding lives, men whose faces he remembers. A doting husband and father, a member of the local church, a politician whose face he’s seen on TV a hundred times. They don’t remember him. The man he passed on the street just minutes before was no different. It doesn’t matter. Once the moment passed, Ash got on the last train of the night that would carry him to Chinatown. 

As always, when he disembarks and he makes his way through the maze of streets and alleys, he can feel suspicious eyes lingering on him. He stands out, doesn’t belong here. The men whose keen eyes follow him know where he’s going; they know better than to try and stop him. 

Chang Dai comes into view like a beacon; its windows are dark long after its usual hours, but still emitting the same warmth of familiarity as it does in the daytime. He makes his way past the usual entrance, to the back of the building where the door leads to a set of upstairs apartments. It’s pitch black, not a single light to guide him, but Ash could find his way to the door he’s looking for with his eyes closed. 

He knocks in their familiar pattern to indicate that it’s him, maybe too loudly for discretion, but the sound is quieter than the hammering in his ears. He waits. When Shorter opens the door, there is no hesitation. Ash presses himself against him immediately, more collision than kiss, greedy and raw and wanting. Shorter barely manages to shut the door behind them. 

After the first frantic tumble of adrenaline fades, Shorter pulls back to take a breath. From the rumpled sheets on the bed behind him and the drooping, mussed purple strands of hair that he usually so carefully styles, it’s apparent that he was interrupted from rest. It appears, for a moment, that he’s going to ask Ash what happened; his eyes are already asking but the question halts before it reaches his lips, as though he thinks better of it. 

“Ash,” he begins instead. Ash cuts him off before he can finish his thought, his mouth pressed against Shorter’s now with less force, even as his hands guide him with a gentle push towards the bed. 

“Don’t wanna talk,” Ash manages to say, and that’s enough to quiet Shorter for the time being. 

That’s why it’s here that he ends up every time. Shorter knows Ash’s rules, implicitly, without having to be told where the boundaries lie. No questions. Let Ash lead, decide the perimeters of their encounter. 

So while Ash peels off his own clothes, he can feel Shorter watching and how he mirrors his actions slowly, careful not to beat Ash to the punch or appear too eager. Hesitant to let the momentum fade, Ash tugs at the waist of Shorter’s pants to draw him closer and pulls the rest of his clothes off with haphazard fervor. By the time he’s finished, he’s already kneeling on the mattress, already finding his place on top of Shorter’s body. 

Ash straddles over his legs, both half-hard from the adrenaline coursing through them. He makes quick work of it, his hand around Shorter’s cock and his mouth pressed against his lips, so he doesn’t have to see himself going through the motions. Shorter’s hips jerk upward involuntarily and his fingers dig into the soft skin of Ash’s hips. It hurts a little - a good, grounding kind of hurt - and Ash leans into it. 

It’s not enough. The ghost touches still linger along the lines of his body, tracing over marks long forgotten, where hundreds had placed their hands before. 

Ash moves, quicker than a flash, and slips onto his back. Shorter starts to press his lips along the line of his jaw as his hands wander across his skin in lingering pathways, and the sweetness of the gesture makes Ash’s stomach churn. He lifts Shorter’s chin up, pulls him away before he can even attempt to get started on whatever he had in mind. 

It doesn’t matter that Shorter is gentle with him. Sometimes gentle is worse. It reminds him of the times when _ they _were gentle, the soft stroke of a stranger’s fingers against his cheek like what they were doing was love, a nauseating pantomime of tenderness. That’s what he came here to forget. 

“Fuck me,” he hears himself saying, his voice too perfectly rehearsed and divinely seductive, and he doesn’t fight against it. Shorter doesn’t question him, instead draws back and runs his hands along the line of Ash’s thighs to spread them apart. 

He almost slips under and gives in to the weight of his memories right then, but the cold slickness of Shorter's fingers pull him back into the moment. Time lost, though how much he isn’t sure; maybe only moments. As Shorter works one finger into him, to ease him open, Ash watches him and tries to remain focused. Focused on the concentrated lines of his face, the care and concern he shows even with Ash prone beneath him. 

“Hurry up already,” Ash chastises, as Shorter’s gently moving fingers hit just the right spot and the latter half of his statement comes out in a shuddering gasp. Shorter doesn’t miss a beat, and Ash can detect the faint outline of a fond smile. He reaches up to trace it with his thumb. 

“Have a little patience, it’s gonna hurt otherwise.”

“If I get any more patient, I’m going to fall asleep.”

The taunt does its job. The wandering hand that’s teasing its way along Shorter’s bottom lip is seized and Ash wraps his legs around him in haste. 

“Come on, I’m not gonna break,” Ash challenges him, a smirk spreading over his lips. This finally does the trick, because almost as soon as he says it, Shorter’s threading his fingers into his hair and tugging it hard enough to throw his head backwards. Ash can feel the sharp nip of teeth at his neck. 

Everything is briefly a blur as Shorter lines himself up with Ash’s body and starts to push inside. This is the easy part; memory and instinct do the work and Ash can simply let himself drift away into the pulsing beginnings of pleasure coursing through him. 

When Shorter’s finally inside of him, it’s both pain and pleasure that Ash can understand. But it’s okay when it’s here, because Shorter lets him decide, allows him to call the shots. He can stop it. He can ask for anything he wants. 

And what he wants is to let this moment soak into his skin until it burns away the memories; enough that he never has to think of any of the other men who’ve touched him again, for them to disappear into the ether of his nightmares. 

Shorter starts to move inside of him, slowly at first, but soon the fervor of lust and adrenaline wins out, and his hips jut forward in strong rhythmic bursts. Ash lays his head back, tries to lose himself in the feeling, just for once to be in the present and be overtaken by what he wants rather than what he remembers. 

It’s not enough. 

Ash finds himself in freefall, backwards into the receding years of the past. He slips into his own mind, ten years old, and a part of him withers. 

Anything he wants, he reminds himself. He reaches for Shorter’s hand and places it along the skin of his neck, fans his fingers out until they’re enclosed around his throat. Shorter pulls back to regard him, a tinge of confusion across his face. 

“Just a little bit,” Ash says. Shorter flexes his fingers a little bit and he’s already breathless. 

Uncertainty peeks out from behind Shorter’s eyes, shows itself in the slackened grip of his hand; a doubt he’s possibly thinking to vocalize, but it dissolves along the line of his lips as he swallows. Ash nudges him, places a hand along his bicep, conjuring a bit of mischief into his voice. 

“What, did you skip out on the gym this week? I can barely feel that.”

“Well excuse me for prioritizing leg day,” Shorter grins down at him. 

Shorter leans his weight down, his hand pressed along the line of his throat and Ash pushes away a fresh surge of panic. It’s fine if it’s him. It’s only ever fine when it’s him. He relaxes and nods his assent for Shorter to continue. His hips find their rhythm once more and it’s blissful pain. 

Ash can’t help but find a thrill in it, drawing him to that line and watching him walk it so carefully. He can sense the thrill Shorter finds in it too, chasing that undefined boundary and always managing to keep himself within it. 

“More,” Ash demands, without specifying what he wants more of, because he wants more of everything. And Shorter intuits enough to indulge him, pushes a little bit harder. 

Shorter’s grip tightens, a little. Ash can feel lingering remnants of his hesitation, but along with that, he can feel the small jolts of pain, the dizzying thrill of allowing himself to go under. 

For a minute, Ash forgets about the man he saw, about his mouth and his touch and how soiled he felt under the oppressive affection he gave. His mind feels blissfully detached from the things that are happening to his body as the world begins to blur around the edges. There are only sensations and he isn’t cognizant of whether they’re good or bad, or if he should feel ashamed of giving in to them. 

For just one moment, everything is transcendent. 

Above him, Shorter groans and his hips slow to a stutter, instinctively his fingers coil tighter. It’s enough to send Ash over the edge; his body gives in and even he is surprised by the sound he makes when he climaxes - he tries to draw in a gasp, to cry out as it pulses through his body. And then it’s dark, quiet, just for a moment. 

He’s pulled out of that dark, suddenly and without warning. He can hear Shorter’s voice, but it sounds far away, like through a pool of water. 

“Ash!” Shorter’s pulled back, his body language tense and expression alarmed, despite how collected he’s visibly trying to be. 

Ash blinks and looks around, bleary eyed, his lungs fill with air again and he’s dizzy with it. 

“How long was I out?” he asks. 

“Just a minute. Jesus, Ash, you should have said-”

“It’s fine,” Ash cuts him off and Shorter stills, watching him quietly. Ash doesn’t want to be watched, his skin crawling with the aftermath of sex and his throat burning. 

They don’t talk about it. 

Ash slips off of the bed, bypasses his clothes that are strewn across the floor, and heads directly for the bathroom. 

The world dissolves into static around him. Somewhere, Shorter’s voice is trying to cut through, but all Ash can focus on is the exhaustive effort of each step that pulls him further away. 

He jumps into the shower, turns the water on as hot as it will run, and he scrubs at his skin until patches of it are bleeding and raw with friction. He doesn’t tend to the bleeding, he lets the water wash over him again and watches as it circles around the drain. Ash goes through all of the motions of cleaning himself, but he doesn’t feel any of it. The water creates a mist of steam around him, so hot that it leaves welts along the exposed skin, but he doesn’t feel its burn. 

He doesn’t even notice the tremor in his limbs, at first. The tiled wall of the shower is cool against his back and it’s slick as he slides down the length of it when his legs finally start to give out. 

The door opens again, but he can’t yet bring himself to move. It doesn’t take long for Shorter to find him like this. Shorter, dressed again now, reaches in and pulls his arm back in surprise at the heat, before turning the faucet to shut off the hot water. 

When Shorter approaches him, he doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t even acknowledge the touch. The water is scalding and it washes over him, but slowly it starts to cool to a soothing warmth. Shorter pulls him up from the floor - sloppy and undignified - getting himself half-soaked in the process. 

It’s painfully quiet but he can feel Shorter assessing him, taking his time before speaking. He finds a way to break none of the rules and still bypass every wall Ash puts up around himself to keep things safe, to keep it all from being too much. 

“That was seriously scary, Ash. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Ash shakes his head before Shorter can continue. 

“It’s fine. I asked for you to do it.”

“That’s the other thing. I don’t want to do… whatever that was, again. You can’t just use me as a way of hurting yourself.” Ash doesn’t look at him right away, but he can hear a line being drawn. There it is, the limit, that invisible boundary they’d been playing at the edges of, and when Ash finally does look it’s confirmed in the frustrated and fearful expression on Shorter’s face. 

An apology hangs precariously from Ash’s lips, but he swallows it back down. Instead, he moistens his lips and and nods his affirmation. 

“Yeah. Okay.”

They don’t say anything else, sitting along the edge of the tub. Eventually, Shorter stands and offers Ash a hand to help him up. He follows him back over to the bedroom, where Ash hastily throws his underwear and t-shirt back on, then crawls onto the bed, overcome with exhaustion. Shorter’s already made room for him there and Ash leans tentatively back against the headboard. 

Droning voices from the TV waft over them while they settle in; Ash is grateful for the noise, anything to keep the silence from swallowing him. 

“Huh. I think there’s a spaghetti western marathon going on, we might be able to catch the end of A Fistful of Dollars.” Shorter makes the attempt to break the silence and flashes an easy smile, and it’s enough to break the dam of tension that had been separating them. The warmth of inhibited affection floods through Ash’s mind. 

Ash allows a laugh to slip through, and relief runs through his veins like a cleanse. 

“You have terrible taste, Shorter. Everybody knows Django’s better.”

“I’m taking that as a yes, then.”

The sounds and flashes of light from the TV as it’s switched to the next channel are a different kind of lullaby. Ash feels himself drifting, spent, and he really shouldn’t allow himself to lean his head down against the empty, warm space in the groove of Shorter’s neck, but he does it anyway. 

It’s okay when he’s here, though. It’s only ever okay when it’s him. 

Shorter slings his arm around Ash’s shoulder, and Ash doesn’t flinch or pull away. His arm is warm, heavy, and unbearably gentle.


End file.
